Kodak wins Java patent suit

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Re: Can somebody help me about patents?

I believe John Carroll wrote a very good article some time ago suggesting why patents are good for many industries, but are not good for the software industry. The intent of patents is to protect individuals and companies that make significant investments while developing products. Patents are supposed to foster growth and innovation in an industry. Patents for the most part work for the development of physical items where a significant amount of money, time, and effort is invested in the development of those items. E.g. developing a drug is very, very expensive. Patents protect the investments of drug manufacturers from competitors who may try to use the processes the original drug manufacturers developed, to make their own products. Not having the protection of patents could severely undermine the original drug manufacturers? ability to recover the costs they incurred while developing their drugs in the first place. Without patent protection, drug manufacturers could not afford to make the investments they make, and the bio-tech industry would not see the growth it enjoys to today. Even for a relatively simple item like a sharpener with two sized shavers, a substantial amount of time, money, and talent is required to build a prototype, apply for a patent, find a manufacturer etc., so that there is justification for patenting that relatively simple physical item.

Patenting software is a different story however. Just about every program shares a range of programming techniques that can be created in as little as a few minutes, that cost in many cases, very little money in programmer time and investment. If many of these programming techniques are patented, a program of even moderate size (created by even an amateur developer) would wind up violating a significant number of patents. If all these patents were enforced, programming would effectively cease ? since the overwhelming majority of programmers (and in many cases the companies they work for) wouldn?t be able to afford to pay the licensing fees required to cover all the patents they infringed on. Therefore, because computer programs by nature use a significant number of programming techniques (far more e.g. than the number of manufacturing techniques used to make a light bulb), it is impractical for the software industry to gain anything from patents, and patents are seen in fact to be more of a stumbling block than an aid to software development. Other IP protection mechanisms like copyrights and trademarks are sufficient for the software industry. The fact that the software industry has made remarkable strides over the past few decades with little active reliance on software patents, and the fact that so many people are roiled up about them now, attest to the fact that though patents may be good for other industries, they are at best of little benefit to the software industry.

Posted by: P. Douglas   Posted on: 10/04/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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